Judge upholds death sentence in HD slaying

A San Diego-area man convicted of killing a Home Depot manager during a robbery attempt will face lethal injection after a judge upheld a jury’s death sentence recommendation, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.

The Nov. 28 hearing in a Santa Ana, Calif. courtroom was attended by the widow of Thomas Egan, who was shot to death in February 2007 by Jason Russell Richardson, age 41. Egan, the father of twin 3-year-old girls at the time, tried to persuade the armed Richardson not to hurt any of the Tustin store employees during the robbery.

Richardson, who entered the store dressed in white coveralls and a painter’s mask, shot the store manager, took $500 from a cashier, but left behind a sock full of ammunition that police traced to him through DNA evidence. Richardson had previous convictions for kidnapping and rape.

Previous juries had twice failed to reach a verdict regarding the death penalty in earlier hearings. Senior deputy district attorney Cameron Talley, who prosecuted the case, was quoted as saying: “He’s just a bad, evil man. If he could die twice, I’d try him again.”